E3 2003: Alter Echo Update

Share.

New trailers and new information on THQ's innovative action game.

By Aaron Boulding

The last time we saw THQ's Alter Echo we came away intrigued by the action game's mix of hack and slash third-person combat and its mini-game controlled combo system. In our most recent look, those basic elements have remained in place, but in an effort to make the game a little more accessible, the development team at Outrage implemented a new camera system and more intuitive level design. The result is that veteran and casual gamers should both be able to make their way through the game with ease and focus all of that valuable brainspace on the extreme weirdness of Alter Echo. In development for the PS2 and Xbox Alter Echo will be available this fall.

The Time Dilation system is how players will unleash the main character's combination moves against groups of enemies. The last time we saw TD in action you had to store up enough automatically regenerating TD energy, go into Time Dilation mode and play a quick Snake-like minigame that had you navigating the head of the snake around mini-mazes of varying complexity. The twist was that the mazes had enough open space for you to navigate the snake in any direction you want, but that each D-pad press up, left, right or down was a command that Nevin would execute in a combo. So in this way you could customize your combo by adding excessive button presses as long as you did it within the time allotted and without running the head of the snake into any barriers. The system works the same more or less but now you'll see graphic representations of the enemies in the Snake minigame and running the head of the snake into them --at whatever point you wish-- is how you ensure that they'll be attacked during the combo that you're unleashing. Previously there was no picture of the enemy, just a generic glyph that represented a nearby threat. The pictures of the enemies help you recognize where they are in relation to your hero in the game world and also help to differentiate enemies from time-extending power glyphs that are also found in the Snake maze and help you make more elaborate combos. Since Time Dilation is such a critical part of the game and also the element most likely to overwhelm gamers with short attention spans (they're reading message boards right now as we speak) it made sense to make it more intuitive.

The combinations themselves when they're launched look different now. Previously when the combo was unleashed the camera would swing and pan to catch the most dramatic angles as Nevin automatically slashed and chopped multiple enemies one by one. They look the same now but instead of seeing the regular game world in the background you just get a formless background without walls or floors as Nevin goes through his moves. It allows the camera to zoom in from low angles that wouldn't have made sense before but the characters appear to be floating in this empty orange space.

In the regular game world Outrage has designed the game with a nice gradual learning curve so that players can get used to Nevin's shape-shifting abilities. Now there are combination attacks as Nevin switches from sword mode (dude with a blade) to gun mode (plodding brute with big cannon) to stealth mode (panther-like critter who can stick to walls and leap) and back again. Simply holding the attack button down while simultaneously hitting the transform button will quickly unleash an attack from that new form as soon as the transformation is done. The levels now require Nevin to switch to the appropriate form to reach objectives and flip switches needed to advance. One example we saw required that Nevin switch to stealth form so he could leap onto a floating platform and then transform into gun mode to destroy the objective that would release a bridge that would allow him to continue along the main path.

A few graphical changes include slightly modified character design so he looks a little more mainstream, more of an over-the-shoulder, top down camera perspective more often and texture work on the environments that really makes the planet seem alive with coursing energy. Nevin and other NPCs in the game all have the far-out body armor up to their necks with human faces popping out of the top but it just doesn't look as startling as it did before. The camera system seems more conventional for a third person game since you can control it or let it float intelligently behind your main character. Previously there seemed to be a lot more left-to-right sidescrolling going on and so the camera wasn't as important as it is now. The pulsing glowing parts of the environment are a consistently creepy reminder that this bizarre planet is alive and menacing.

IGN will have more on Alter Echo in the coming months but we encourage you to take a look at the exclusive trailers in the media section that explain the game's direction and crazy gameplay mechanics better than we ever will.